This Love
by pickalily
Summary: Levi Ackerman doesn't believe in love and Petra, a drifting musician that blows into town, is exactly the sort of person he's looking for in a relationship - something temporary to pass the time. Only she's not. She's too touchy, too happy, and she actually believes that nonsense in love songs. But the worst part about her is that she just might be making him fall in love with her.
1. Chapter 1

Levi unconsciously rubbed his thumb in circles on the side of his beer and contemplatively looked outside of the window where the sky had darkened and the dim light of the stars struggled to make their mark against the black background despite the light pollution. His eyes flicked to the half empty bottle of beer in his hand and he sighed. "I've got something I need to do," he muttered to his friends, his voice barely audible over the buzz of the crowded Shiganshina Club.

"You're not going to finish your drink?" Auruo asked with his eyebrows raised. "That's only your first drink and it's our last summer together before real life begins. Stay! Come celebrate before work comes and destroys us – especially you since you're taking over the family business, hot shot!" He shot Levi a knowing look.

"That's three month before that happens. Leave it. We barely graduated a couple of days ago," Levi said, rolling his eyes. He chugged the rest of his drink hastily, not even bothering to savor the taste of the bitter golden liquid. Levi wasn't really a beer guy. He set the glass down on the table with a clink. "Besides, I told you I had something to do."

Gunther grinned. "Is time of the essence for this particular 'thing' you have to do? You certainly look like a man on a mission."

Eld elbowed Auruo in the ribs and chuckled at the scowling Levi. "It's that time again. He has that look on his face."

Gunther's smile dropped off of his face and was replaced with a startled expression. "Really? You can't be serious." He took a long look at Levi's face and frowned deeply. "Jesus, Levi, you've only been dating her for a couple of months. She's pretty great too."

"You can't possibly tell that I'm going to break up with Rico just because of the look on my face," Levi said exasperatedly. "This is my face. I always look like this."

"No, no, no," Eld insisted. He stroked his chin, a smug smirk on his face. God, how Levi wished he could wipe that stupid smile off of his face with his fist. "See, you typically looked a lot more pissed off. Whenever you're contemplating a breakup you look a lot more pensive and stare off into the distance more, like when you were gazing out the window just a minute ago."

"And you are breaking up with her, right?" Auruo asked tentatively.

"Yes," Levi said grudgingly. He'd been friends with these guys for years but he was a still little bit ashamed of how easily he could be read by them. Then again, they had been around long enough to know his pattern and exactly when he was itching to get out of a relationship.

"I knew it," Eld said triumphantly, obviously quite pleased with himself. He offered his hand out to Gunther for a high five but Gunther just gave him a disapproving look. Instead he propped his chin in his hand, his elbow sitting on the table. "So what did Rico do to tick you off? Did she eat in your car? Take of a sip of your drink using your straw? Have a speck of dirt under her fingernails?"

"Did she tell you she loved you?" Gunther asked tentatively. It was common knowledge among the group of friends that Levi would get the hell out once a declaration of love meant the relationship suddenly became too much of a commitment.

"Maybe she made a grammatical error," snickered Auruo. "Said 'anyways' instead of 'anyway.'"

Levi ignored them and shrugged on his jacket. "Have fun finding a ride home, you shits." He turned his back on them and waved a hand, keys jingling as they hung on his finger, as he walked away, not even giving them a backwards glance. Screw them all. They could take a taxi or something. He didn't give a fuck.

xxxxx

He didn't even bother taking off of his jacket. Breakups were never pleasant. Sometimes they'd cry, sometimes they'd scream, a couple of girls even threw things at him. He didn't peg Rico for any of the three, but he never really knew until he actually delivered the news. His goal was to get in, say what he needed to say as quickly as possible, and then leave so he could wallow in his newfound freedom once again.

Rico looked at him from the doorway she was leaning against. Her glasses were perched on the bridge of her nose, her gray eyes watching him closely. "You're not going to take off your jacket?" she asked. "It's pretty warm in here." She herself was only wearing a loose-fitting tunic paired with dark shorts.

"I'm fine," Levi assured her as he smoothed a crease on her comforter. Rico had pretty decent cleaning habits but she always seemed to be able to rid her blankets of wrinkles no matter how she made her bed. "Listen, I was thinking…"

She held up a hand to stop him and walked up to him, taking a seat next to Levi on her bed. "Levi, you don't have to say it. I know you're going to break up with me." She was surprisingly calm about it. In fact, she seemed a little too accepting of their inevitable break up. Levi was a little offended, to be honest. Then again, Rico being incredibly broken up about this would be pretty uncharacteristic of her. "Would it be rude to say that I'm a little glad it's happening?"

The words were coming out of his mouth with great difficulty. This was the first time any girl had taken a breakup with such resolution. "You're not making any sense," Levi said. Maybe expecting any sort of distress from her was arrogant, but he wanted to at least know that this relationship had some sort of emotional impact on her. Hell, he never got into relationships to make an emotional connection with anyone, but the girls always expected that. He was typically in it for the sex, harsh as that sounds. He never would have pegged Rico for that type though.

She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a laugh. "Sorry, it sounds like I'm breaking up with you, doesn't it? But honestly if it weren't you doing it today, it'd be me ending it."

"Why?" This conversation was definitely not going in the direction he had intended it to go. With every word spoken, he was getting more of an itch to just run out of there, but even he wasn't that indecent.

Rico sighed and turned her head to really look at him, to gaze into his blue-gray eyes with her stormy ones. "Levi, you're a decent boyfriend, but you're not great. It's like you do the bare minimum so you can qualify as my significant other and then we have sex." She put her hand up once again when he began to protest. "Honestly, I wasn't looking for you to be 'the one' or anything stupid like that. You'd probably run if I had even brought it up."

"Jesus," Levi muttered under his breath, and the side of Rico's mouth twitched with amusement. He took that as a slightly good sign. They'd probably end on slightly good terms unlike most of his other relationships. At least he could count on her calling him at 2am shouting incoherent accusations at him through unbearable sobs.

"Oh my god, you want to run right now, don't you?" she laughed, and he cringed. He didn't know how she could find anything amusing while listing reasons about why he wasn't the Greatest Boyfriend Ever. Even he was never that ruthless to his past girlfriends. Obviously Rico was on a whole other level of cruelty. Her giggles subsided and she put a hand on his shoulder. "You're interesting, Levi. And these past couple of months haven't been bad, but I feel like we haven't made any progress at all, at least in the actual relationship department. You're the most closed off person I know, Levi."

"I'm not 'closed off,'" Levi protested indignantly. He didn't know why he was arguing, to be honest. It wasn't like he didn't want to end this. Maybe he just wanted to defend himself. Being called heartless, although it was somewhat true, was pretty insulting. "I give the perfect amount of care and support when it's needed."

"You're so emotionally detached in bed that one time I cancelled because I was too lazy to drive over to your house," Rico replied, rolling her eyes.

Levi's eyebrows shot up, his mouth slightly agape.

She sighed and slid her hand from his shoulder down to his arm, letting her hand settle on top of his hand. "Look, I don't want this to end badly, Levi," she said, her voice low. "It was great, so I hope we can still get by without any bad feelings."

He let out a breath, relieved. If she had suggested they stayed friends, he would have bolted. Becoming friends with your ex never worked, no matter how much the two parties pushed for it. He was fine with just brief hellos as they passed by each other on the street. "Sounds good," he said.

Rico smiled, noticing how he was starting to fidget on her bed because he was itching to find a way to escape her house without seeming rude. "Are you going to take your leave now?" she asked.

"Unless you have anything else you want to talk about," he said, but he was already standing up and making his way toward her bedroom door.

"What was your reason going to be?" she blurted when his foot was halfway out the door. Rico bit her lip nervously.

Levi stopped at the door, one hand on the doorway, but he didn't bother to turn around and look at her. "We're out of college," he said flatly, his voice entirely void of emotion. God, even that sounded pathetic to him even though being busy with other things had always seemed like a valid reason when he dumped other people. "We should go out in the world without getting in each other's way. Meet new people." Rico could probably see through the crap he was spouting out now. She was a hell of a lot smarter than he had given her credit for. If only he had paid attention to her sooner, he would have dumped her earlier so she never would have figured him out.

She smiled to herself. "I see," she said quietly. "Goodbye, Levi."

"Bye." He didn't give her a glance when he left. He didn't look behind him once, not when he shut the door behind him when he left the house or even a glance at his rearview mirror as he drove away. It was, after all, only another breakup and he probably wouldn't remember the details in a week or two. It would just be another footnote in his life. Any feelings of guilt that Rico had brought up in the few minutes he had stopped by were left at her front door when he had left. So maybe he was heartless for not caring already, but was it really a bad thing if he wasn't nursing a broken heart?

Levi contemplated heading back to the club where his friends were. The breakup had taken up less time than he had thought and he decided another drink or two might do him some good. Besides, the night was still young.

* * *

 _A/N: Yet another multi-chaptered fic from me that might take a while to get updates. Then again, I have a week off next week, so maybe not? We'll see. I try to shoot for an update a month but that doesn't happen sometimes because of school. I'll try my best though!_

 _Here's a modern AU based off of Sarah Dessen's YA novel This Lullaby. I hope you've enjoyed reading it so far. Favorites/follows/reviews are deeply appreciated!_


	2. Chapter 2

Levi got dumped and for some reason _he_ was the heartless one. He really couldn't understand his friends at all. If anything, they should all be happy that he wasn't moping about all the time and bemoaning his newfound singleness. Wasn't it best if he didn't waste his time grieving over the loss of his ex-girlfriend? After all, he and Rico were bound to break up anyway. If it hadn't happened now then it would have happened sooner and later. Honestly, he was kind of glad it had happened sooner. It was ridiculous to go around holding her hand and pretending they'd get married and live in a white picket fence house with the average two point five kids. Just the vague idea of any of that made him nauseous. Apparently she felt the same way and this was for the better, he thought. He brought up this point with his friends only to have them all share a look before giving him an incredibly judgmental stare.

So he ignored them like he always did and went right back to his usual routine – not that it deviated very much from when he was with Rico or whenever he broke up with someone. At least now he didn't have to worry about taking her out on dates, which certainly gave him a lot more time to do other things. For example, join his cousin and her family for dinner. God knows how long it had been since he sat down with them for a meal and, damn, could her mother cook. And as solitary as Levi was, he couldn't really resist the warm and inviting atmosphere that always surrounded his aunt and uncle's home. Not only that, but now he could be with the one person who understood him the most amidst the legions of people who constantly ridiculed him for his emotions or lack thereof.

His cousin Mikasa, despite being four years his junior, had been a bit like his trusty protégé when the two were younger. She shared the lack of expression, physical poweress, intellect, and was one of the few people that shared his confusion on relationships – or at least she used.

When Eren Jaeger moved in next door to Mikasa's family, Levi never thought the brat would be stealing his cousin and _changing_ her. And, prior to the scarf incident, Mikasa didn't seem very interested in the kid. She would sometimes tell Levi anecdotes about Eren doing something stupid whenever he visited his cousin every week or two. And then, out of nowhere, she was suddenly star-struck for the kid. Okay, maybe not out of nowhere. It was after Mikasa's scarf, one her mother had given to her that Mikasa wore constantly, had been blown away on a particularly windy autumn day and had gotten stuck high up a tree and Eren, being the stupidly heroic kid he was, immediately climbed up the goddamn tree and, although he fell after stepping on the wrong branch, he did manage to clutch the scarf before he hit the ground. Never mind that the guy broke his arm trying to break his fall on the way down, Mikasa was absolutely smitten with the idiot. And now, to celebrate that fateful interaction, Eren would buy Mikasa scarves of every color and print just to prove his "love" to her. Jesus, the whole thing made Levi sick. He just couldn't understand it.

But it wasn't that Eren was a bad guy. He was pretty all right. He was polite, made Mikasa happy, and he was decent at cleaning. Levi just hated him because of the drastic changes that seemed to occur in his cousin after Eren's arrival into her life. She would hum under her breath and not realize it until someone pointed it out, look out the window to daydream with a small smile on her face, and her whole face would light up when that brat walked into the room. Jealousy wasn't the right word Levi felt for Eren. It was more like this intense and burning desire to murder the kid. How could someone as ordinary as Eren affect Mikasa so fiercely?

Now that Mikasa had joined the masses of people who believed in this love crap Levi felt more, well, alone. It didn't help that she managed to unlock this strange mystery while he confusedly stared at all of the couples around him despite having four years more of world experience on him. Sure, she'd listen to his rambles about why he needed to end this relationship or why it would never last with the girl he was dating, but there seemed to be a wall between them now, as if she doubted any word of his cynical views on love. He had lost his closest ally to that damn Eren Jaeger kid. After all of his loss, he was sure that the idiot wouldn't mind if he…

"-didn't set up a place for Eren at the table," his cousin said, glowering. While she could shoot pretty threatening glares, she had nothing on Levi and he only shrugged. As was typical Mikasa behavior, she was already ready behind him with a set of utensils to put at her boyfriend's seat at the dining table.

"Forgot," Levi replied.

She rolled her eyes. "He's been eating dinner with us every weekend since I was twelve so don't feed me that 'forgot' crap. You may be old, but I know your memory hasn't deteriorated that much," she huffed, clearly annoyed.

"Hey, I haven't been here in months. Maybe something happened. Maybe, on this particular day, the brat couldn't make it because of some random act of god."

"Stop calling him a brat," she hissed. "He has a name."

"Fine, fine," Levi said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. While he knew Mikasa could never hate him forever, she could definitely hold up a grudge so he made a mental reminder to keep the jibes at her boyfriend at a minimal tonight. "I'll play nice tonight." He plopped down on the couch and stretched. All of this crap was making him tired.

But it was apparent that Mikasa didn't want to drop the subject. She stood in front of him, her arms crossed. "You know, just because you're a bitter, old man doesn't mean the rest of us can't find love," she said.

Half of him wanted to brush her comment off and pursue another topic of conversation but another part of him couldn't help but get offended. "I'm not bitter," he protested, "or old. If anything, I'm the sweetest guy ever. Would a bitter, old man help plan his friend's wedding?" He had, in fact, helped Eld plan his wedding with his fiancée Rosalind during their last semester of university. It was a pain in the ass to deal with it so close to graduation but because of his extensive knowledge on wedding planning due to his father's many marriages (half of which terminated after the girlfriends found out how less-than-faithful Levi's father was), Levi was a bit of a wedding expert – pretty ironic considering how being in a committed in a relationship for more than a few months made him feel claustrophobic. But, goddamn, if Mikasa didn't think that wasn't a selfless act, she sure was demanding a lot out of him.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "You bitched and moaned about planning Eld's wedding so much I would hardly call it sweet of you." She sighed and sat beside him. She wasn't glaring at him anymore and he would have taken it as a good sign except she was now looking at him with a sympathetic expression. Honestly, he would have taken the death glare over her sympathy any day. "Levi, this love crap that you always bitch about? It's not that bad. Eren makes me really, really happy. And I hope you can be happy like this too. You know, just because your mom and dad didn't work out doesn't mean you don't have a shot."

He wondered if she knew she had crossed the line with her last comment. Sure, she probably thought she was helping him by offering him these "words of encouragement" or whatever it was she was spouting out but he didn't need help with this love crap. He was fine with his temporary relationships, thank you very much. And the fact that he always walked away with zero emotional collateral damage was a sign that this was a lifestyle that, while people wouldn't agree with, worked with him, so why change anything? Besides, his parents' failed relationship hardly had to do with anything. Instead of addressing Mikasa's latter statement, Levi simply ignored it and asked if dinner would be ready soon.

Mikasa shot him a disgruntled look and got up, brushing off her jeans and adjusting her scarf – a simple beige cloth with black birds printed all over it. Another gift from Jaeger, no doubt, Levi thought. "I'll check," she said. As she walked to the kitchen to ask her mom how dinner was coming along, Levi heard her mutter something about him being emotionally constipated but he decided not to say anything about it. He'd had enough discussions about his heartlessness with his friends but getting one from his cousin? Well, that just made him feel even more betrayed about her change of heart than he already felt once she started dating that Eren kid.

He pulled out his phone and started playing Flappy Bird. A mindless tapping game would surely distract him for a while and hopefully take his mind off of that stupid conversation he had with Mikasa. Levi frowned when the yellow pixilated bird crashed into a green pipe and, after a couple of more unsuccessful plays that all resulted in crashes after only a couple of taps, he shoved his phone back into his pocket. If he couldn't even get past twenty taps, today was a bad day indeed.

The doorbell rang and, before Mikasa could sprint over, Levi made it over to the door in a few quick strides and opened it up to a smiling Eren. Eren's smile, after he realized it was Mikasa's intimidating cousin instead of Mikasa, faltered for a bit but he still gave Levi a strained grin. "Hi, Levi," Eren said nervously. "I haven't seen you in a while. How are you doing?"

Levi smirked and didn't budge from the doorway to let Eren walk in. Oh, how he loved seeing the kid squirm. "I'm grand," Levi shrugged. He eyed the pie in Eren's arms, which was freshly baked from the Braus Bakery judging by the delicious smell of cinnamon and apples, but made no offer to take it from him. "How have you been doing?"

Eren shifted from foot to foot. "Oh, you know," he mumbled. He was taller than Levi but still quivered before the intense stare of the small man. "A little bit nervous about college and everything." He chewed his bottom lip nervously and looked past Levi. "Erm, is Mikasa here?"

Before Levi could open his mouth, someone knocked him to the side so hard that he almost fell over. Grumbling, he looked over to where he once stood and was not surprised to see Mikasa, her face lit up in a big smile like it always did whenever she was in the same room with Eren. Eren, of course, had a matching grin. God, they were gross.

"Eren!" she said, beaming like the goddamn sun. She hurriedly took the pie from Eren's hands and pecked him on the cheek. "You know you don't have to keep bringing food over whenever you come over for dinner, but it's incredibly sweet of you. Why don't you come in? I hope Levi wasn't harassing you too much. You remember how moody he is." She stepped to the side to let Eren in and made sure to glare at Levi from behind her boyfriend's back and Levi smirked.

Eren chuckled, making sure to take off his shoes before stepping into the house. "No worries. Levi was very civil," he assured her.

Nevertheless, Mikasa scowled at her cousin and ushered Eren into the living room so they could chat before dinner officially started. Before Levi could follow, she turned around and shoved the pie in his hands. "Go help my mom with dinner since you're so hungry," she said, eyes threatening to kill him if he dared to further intimidate her boyfriend.

He took the pie and stuck his tongue out at her but did as she told him, breezily walking into the kitchen where his aunt and uncle were finishing up dinner. He deposited the pie on an empty space on the marble countertop and leaned against the doorframe. "Eren's here," he announced.

His aunt looked up at him and smiled. "Is he? That explains why Mikasa bolted so suddenly from here a few minutes ago," she laughed. Mikasa had adopted much of her looks from her mother, from her silky, black hair, to her thin, lithe frame. If Mikasa smiled more, Levi had no doubt that the two would look like carbon copies of each other.

"Well, we're just about ready to start dinner," chuckled his uncle. "I hope you're hungry for some pasta, Levi." His aunt and uncle were so domesticated and friendly, Levi often had a hard time believing that they were actually related to him. He secretly thought that his real uncle had been switched at birth with his real uncle. How else would that explain how he was related to Mikasa's family?

Levi's aunt looked curiously behind him, as if searching for some unannounced guest. "You didn't perchance bring someone with you, did you, Levi?" she asked, her head slightly to the side.

"Ah, no," Levi answered. He was confused as to why his aunt would think he would bring a guest at all, especially unannounced. "Why do you ask?"

His aunt and uncle looked at each other and shrugged. "Mikasa mentioned a couple of weeks before that you were dating someone," his uncle explained. "A young lady named Rico, was it? We just though maybe you'd invite her to eat dinner with us or something."

His aunt nodded in agreement. "Yes! It would be lovely to meet her sometime, Levi."

Levi could feel his cheek reddened even though he had no reason, he thought, to feel embarrassed. Relationships came and went, after all. "We broke up," he said. He tried to say it casually but felt the atmosphere change from warm and friendly to just plain awkward. Damn his cousin for ever mentioning Rico to her parents.

There was a pause before his uncle clapped him on the back, smile back on his face. "Well, that's a shame," he said, giving Levi a good pat. "But I'm sure you'll find someone out there."

"It just takes time," his aunt said, carrying the pot of pasta to the dining room while her husband trailed behind with the tomato sauce.

"I'm fine," he assured them. And he was fine by himself, he thought, even as he heard Mikasa and Eren laughing together in the living room. Even as his aunt and uncle were probably in the dining room, smiling at each other as they always did like they were newlyweds. Even as his friend Eld was getting ready to tie the knot with Rosalind in a couple of weeks. Screw love and relationships and being with someone forever. He'd rather be by himself with a relationship here and there. Anything more would be a pain in the ass and anyone who tried to convince him otherwise was just wasting their time.

* * *

 _A/N: I decided I was the worst at naming chapters so I gave up trying to name chapters in this story. On the bright side: Yaaay, update! I'm actually pretty busy this quarter, so don't expect a chapter until early to mid-June. I'd love to get another chapter out next month but that just doesn't seem possible with the overwhelming amount of schoolwork I have. (I also have a paper due on Monday, which is probably why writing this is going so well. It's like whenever I have something else I should be doing my creative juices start flowing and I need to write fics instead of whatever the heck I actually should be doing. Why was I made this way?)_

 _I decided to name Eld's fiancée/wife/lover/what-have-you Rosalind because her seiyuu's name is Yuka which means "tender" and Rosalind is a German name that means "tender." (I feel really weird using Eld instead of Erd because I feel like I always use Erd but I checked the last chapter and, nope, I used Eld.) Unless there's already a canon name for Eld's lover that I'm not aware of, I'm just going to use Rosalind from now on._

 _As always, thank you so much for all of the reviews/follows/favorites! It's very nice to hear from you guys!_

 _Also: That last chapter of SnK was crazy, wasn't it?_

 _Coming up next: Petra Ral_


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